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At 7:00 in the evening, a majority of the Chase County High School students are sitting at home, eating dinner or starting on homework. They plan to finish everything up quickly and hit the hay early, or maybe stay up a little later to get a head start on the next day’s assignment.

Around this time, the school is closed, all teachers and students are gone.

The stage is dark, the auditorium is silent. Until the entirety of the One Act crew bursts into the room.

Boom! Crash! Lights come on and someone shouts.

Random cartwheels and backflips are performed across the stage, coupled with loud screaming and the occasional thrown food wrapper.

One Act cast and crew.

Standing in the center of this hurricane, Mrs. Bauerle hands out scripts for the new play. Even with the shouting and jumping around, at the end of the first practice, everyone has a sense of where they stand in terms of lines.

“It’s like trying to organize a group of kids from kindergarten,” Mrs. Bauerle said, reflecting back on the One Act season. “The first few practices are always like that.”

Under her direction, the initial chaos morphed quickly into organization and hard work that allowed the Chase County One Act Team to perfect the play “Genesis,” which retells the story of Eve, Cain and Abel. They earned second place at the SPVA conference meet.

Colton B. gets into his role as a figure from the “dark side” in the One Act play “Genesis.”

At SPVA, Bridgette O. won Best Female Actress and Colton B. was named to the All-Conference Cast. At districts in Sidney, the group tied for third and ended up being awarded fourth place. Bridgette, Colton, and Tagan M. all received individual district honors for their performances.

“The play was hard to put together, but once we did, it was a lot of fun,” said sophomore Ruth Dodge. “But I also think it would have made it easier if we had started earlier in the year.”

Colton B. and Tagan M. perform a scene together.

The cast agreed; starting the play off early always helps, even though “practice” perhaps isn’t technically the right word for those early gatherings.

“The cast and crew like to goof off,” Ruth said. “At first glance, it doesn’t remotely even look like practice.”

But once everyone gets organized, the true work begins.

“It really is a lot of fun,” Katie R. said. “I like that we can be creative with the written script.”

The “chorus” performs together in One Act.

Improvisation plays a large part in the actual acting on stage; sometimes the entire mood will be changed based entirely on how the cast reads it out.

“Sometimes, it ends up sounding much better than how it’s supposed to be read,” Katie added, “even if at first, it sounded ridiculous.”

As soon as the parts were down, creating the set was the next step. The process was a long and hectic one, filled with spray paint and lots of cardboard.

“ It’s amazing what we end up with,” senior Kelly C. said, “when all we have is paint and a few boxes from backstage.”

Staff and students look forward to seeing what the group will perform next year.